Archive of Our Own

It was late, later than he’d usually ever be, when he first saw the shape.

Some of the cows hadn’t come home, and Rosie, bless her heart, couldn’t seem to find her no matter where she ran to, barking her head damn well off. It was his fault, really. The cows needed their space to graze, but he should have been keeping a closer eye on ‘em. A few of the girls were limping, one badly, and no sooner than he’d managed to cut off enough horn to ease off the pressure and get the last one's left claw bandaged did Rosie start going mad.

Losing a few cows was always bound to happen, year after year. He was a lucky man; lotta folks would have been in dire straights if they were to lose even a few. He had a good several hundred that were his and the land to graze ‘em on through the spring and summer months. But it was late now, only two weeks from October, and it was time to bring them in to market. He had hundreds of miles to cover while the weather was still good, and while the cows usually knew what was in their best interest there were always a good dozen at least that liked to elude him. He’d thought he was out of the woods for tonight, but clearly lady luck had another thing coming his way.

A few always went missing, he told himself. Some of ‘em were stubborn. Couldn’t be helped. But deep down in his heart he never liked leaving even one if he could help it.

“Alright. C’mon, Jan. Just a ‘lil further before we sleep.”

His mare, Janice, was a steady girl, not like some of the pushy stallions other cowpokes were fond of. He’d renamed her when he bought her after his daughter Janey, back home a good 50 miles west. Barb would be nearly done with dinner by now, and Janey would have most of her chores done too, if not all of ‘em. She was a good kid, nearly ready to ride herself. He’d get her a colt next spring, God willing, and she’d learn the ropes while they both grew. She’d be a natural, he already felt it.

But for now, he couldn’t miss his daughter. Could be another day before he had all the cows wrangled up and back at the barn. Every year was the same and this one was no different. He’d see his wife and daughter again when the cows were home, it was what it was. Shouldn’t take more than a day to bring ‘em all back, two at most, but some years he was unlucky, and he wasn’t getting any younger.

Fifty years, huh. Well, not quite, but almost. Almost fifty years he’d been doin’ this, taught from his father who’d learned from his father before him. He almost thought he wouldn’t have a family, most men were far younger than he was when they started one, but ten years ago he’d met Barb, newly widowed, and six years ago now Barb had given him his dear Janey.

His dog, Rosie, paced around his horse. “Stay, Rosie.” The collie whined, but did as she was told. He chuckled. “Need you to stay with the rest of the girls.” As if the dog knew what he was talking about. In any case, he squeezed his heels and Janice set down the hill in front of them.

She’d be fine. Rosie had a good head on her shoulders. Weren’t as though coyotes were bold enough to attack a healthy herd unless truly desperate, and the wolves were long gone from this place.

At the bottom of this hill lay a river. The river twisted its way northwest, feeding into a lake about two miles up. Well- It was more of a large pond than a lake. He’d seen true lakes, long years ago in the Midwestern states, and this one paled in comparison. Regardless of its official definition, it was a large body of clean enough water. He’d brought the cows there several times over the years, his ladies all knew where it was. He fully expected some of them to have camped out there. If a few wandered down for a drink at the river he could hardly blame them. Just wouldn’t be fun getting ’em back up the river ravine.

Halfway down he was of half a mind to leave them for now and pick back up tomorrow. The sun was getting closer and closer to the horizon, the open fall sky starting to turn its white clouds pink and gold. Much longer and he’d be going back up this hill in the dark with who knew how many cows in tow.

But fool that he was, something gave him pause. A strange flash of white between the pale trees surrounding the river.

Now what the hell was that? It was too tall for most of the wild things one typically ran into in the area. And none of his cows were white.

“C’mon Jan. Easy now.”

His horse had stopped, ears fixed in the direction he’d seen the shape. So he wasn’t imagining it. It took a moment for her to keep moving, every step seeming more careful than the next.

A smarter man might have turned back. But then, no one had ever accused him of bein’ a genius.

His parents, back when they were alive, told him he nearly drowned in this river as a child. Got pulled along by the current and washed up three miles down. He didn’t remember it, only the fever they said followed and a scar on his wrist. Part of him figured they were just trying to keep him away from the water. He’d loved it as a boy, and even almost four decades later there was something soothing about the sound of water running over the rocks.

“Steady, Janice.” Take it step by step. Janice hadn’t failed him yet, and she didn’t this time either. Almost down. And there they were.

The air felt strange, colder than usual. Wasn’t anything unusual about a slight drop in temperature near the water, but this felt different. Deeper, somehow, and heavy, the chill reaching his lungs and settling there.

It shouldn’t be cold enough, but vapor rose from the river’s surface.

The branches cracked. Cooper looked up.

He’d come down here looking for lost cows. He stood face to face with a horse.

She was pale, pale grey, with a dark mane and big eyes, even for a horse. Beautiful and well-groomed, barely a speck of dirt on her coat or mane. She stared straight at him, ears fixed his way. She wasn’t wild, she couldn’t be, not staring straight at him without an ounce of fear.

Besides, she was bridled, a thin strip of powder blue leather wrapping around her face.

Holding onto his saddle horn, Cooper dismounted his horse, setting foot into the damp earth below him. The horse still didn’t shy, she kept her steady gaze on him.

“Easy, girl. Where’s your rider? She run into trouble?”

The horse blinked, as if she could understand his words and wasn’t particularly impressed with them.

The mare might be bridled, but she sure wasn’t saddled. It must have fallen off somewhere. It would explain the lack of rider, but otherwise only raised further questions. Who the hell was riding a horse like this on his land? She looked fit for a show or a parade, even had tiny golden bells on her bridle and what looked like beads in her mane. No one round these parts was dressin’ up their horses like this. The horses round here were for work, not for some rich lady’s entertainment or jumping shows. And if some lady was out here riding, why trespass onto his land? Nothing about this made a lick of sense.

And this horse. It was like she was sizin’ him up. She still hadn’t moved, not one ounce of worry. Even the most patient and well-trained of horses were usually suspicious of strangers, especially without their owners present. But not only wasn’t she afraid, she stepped forward, walking into the river without so much as him coaxing her. The bells on her bridle tinkled, a sweet and strange sound to hear in the middle of nowhere.

He stepped closer too, boots in the water. They’d soon be cold, but that was nothin’ he hadn’t been through before. From here he could see her eyes were a deep green, still staring right into him.

“That’s right, girlie. Little closer now. I got you.” He could almost take her reins. She was so close.

It huffed, as if it could understand and was amused. Laughing at him. The hell’d this horse come from?

Suddenly a branch cracked, and the horse turned tail. He reached out to grab her, but she was too far- He missed her by inches, and soon she’d disappeared into the trees, faster than any horse he’d seen besides those bred for racing.

“Damn it!”

The moment she was out of sight there wasn’t a trace of her. Not a flash of her dark mane, not a moving branch, not even any more of those tinkling bells. Nothing. It was like she’d never been there at all.

Cooper sighed, stepping back out of the water and onto shore. Least the water hadn’t gotten through his boots, he supposed. But that meant a problem for another day, ‘cause not only was there a lady missing, so was her horse, and clearly the animal was of good breeding. Someone would be out looking for the both of them, he expected, and sooner or later they were gonna come looking on his land.

“Well, Janice, look’s like we ain’t outta the woods yet-”

He stopped the moment he saw his horse. Janice’s eyes were bulging wide, her ears pinned back in fear. His stomach dropped.

“The hell is it, girl-”

The bushes rustled again, and Cooper whipped around. Ain’t no way it was coyotes getting Janice in such a state. Wolves? Nah, they were gone, not seen since his grandfather’s days. A mountain lion? He looked back. His shotgun was holstered on Janice’s saddle. He had his knife, but ain’t no way anything scaring his horse shitless was gonna care ‘bout that-

A cow shoved her way through the branches in her path, steadily walking towards him.

Another emerged from the trees, joining her. Another, then another. Five cows in all. Five of his ladies, blinking and looking around as though wondering how they’d ended up here.

For a moment he swore there was a green glint in one’s eye, but the next there was nothing but a cow’s natural deep black.

He breathed out a shuddering breath he didn’t know he’d been holding, and he could swear it was warmer again.

As he thought, by the time he managed to wrangle the cows back up the ravine it was past dark.

Alone, he would have likely tried to make his way back home. It wasn’t all that far back up to the house, or the stables and barn alongside it. But with the cows in tow he decided against it, instead unsaddling Janice and making a fire. He’d brought some jerky in case this happened, he was as prepared as he needed to be out here.

His horse had been nervous the rest of the way, flicking her ears towards every sound. But once they were back up the ravine, she’d relaxed, acting more like her usual calm self. Rosie was as enthusiastic as ever, barking and making sure the cows he’d brought back joined the rest of the herd.

There was still a woman and her horse somewhere out on his land, but there wasn’t much he was gonna be able to do about that in the dark. Whoever she was and whyever she was on his property, she hopefully hadn’t come to any harm. He couldn’t see any other reason her horse would have been wandering around without its saddle, but there was always hope, no matter how slim.

His old scar on his wrist had gone back to its usual lack of trouble. He’d forgotten he had it until it had decided to be a nuisance again back by the river. Strange, but that was apparently the theme of the day. Strange.

Tomorrow was a new one, and it’d likely be more normal. So after having him some jerky and sitting around the fire with his thoughts, Cooper chose to hit the hay, lying out his saddle blanket and resting his hat over his face.

Tomorrow he’d bring back the cows, and tomorrow he’d find him his interloper and that strange horse of hers.

The air was cold and heavy again, like it was back at the river’s edge.

The animals around him were asleep, each and every one, their silhouettes clear under the moonlight. The fire had died down, only deep red embers still glowing in the blackened char.

There was someone here. He sensed it more than saw it.

He wanted to get up, wanted to just move, but his limbs felt like lead. He mustered the strength to knock off his hat, but only just.

A shadow slowly approached him, and though the moon was bright he somehow couldn’t see it well. It walked among the cows, crossing between them, getting closer and closer to him. It stopped in front of Janice, considering her, then snorted a soft laugh and continued.

It was a person. No, not just a person.

It was a woman.

She had thick dark hair, loose and flowing just past her shoulders. Her eyes were large as they watched him. She was pale, almost too pale under the moon, but the red of the embers gave her a healthier glow as she faced him, those eyes holding equal parts wonder and bold curiosity.

“... I-”

Wordlessly, she snatched his arm, pulling up his sleeve, thumb pressing against his flesh.

His scar burned. He tried to yank it back, but she was far stronger than she looked, her nails digging in. She was searching, searching, dragging her thumb up until it touched that old mark.

The pain disappeared completely and in shock, he stopped fighting her, leaving his arm in her grip.

Her face transformed, any and all doubt in those wide eyes blossoming into naked joy.

“It is you!”

Her grip loosened enough that he could pull his arm away, though he was oddly slow in doing it. He managed to sit up too, get a better look at her, but his mind struggled to process what he was seeing.

She was beautiful, the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Her hair was brown, he could now see, the deep brown of freshly-tilled earth, her eyes a mossy green. They were slightly shadowed, as though she hadn’t slept in a while, but it only served to draw even more attention to them. Up close, her pale skin seemed to shimmer, catching the faintest glimmers from the mix of silver and red light. She- Well, she wasn’t wearing nearly enough for the chill of the night around her. It was some kind of gauzy material, a green-grey only just hiding her body from sight, just enough to leave his imagination to fill the gaps.

There was something woven on top of her head, some green material ending in smooth, polished beads. River jade, he thought, though he didn’t know how he knew that. He’d only ever seen a piece once, far as he could recall, and these were in all sorts of veined colours, green and red and blue and a few that looked like they might be gold.

And she was speaking. “I didn’t mean to doubt you, but I wasn’t sure! You look so different now. Not like us, we don’t- We don’t change the way you do. I mean, we change, obviously, we take many forms, but it’s not the same as, as this. Not that it’s a bad thing! But it’s different, and you’re different now. You’re so tall, and strong, and... It wasn’t that long, was it? It feels like almost nothing should have changed. But here you are!”

What in the everloving fuck?

This complete stranger was goin’ a mile a minute about total nonsense, acting like they’d known each other their whole lives. Even more, she reached for him, giggling as she touched his face, rubbing along the hair at his temples and then down to his jaw.

“I would have come back sooner, but things got... They got complicated for a while, and you know me, I can only go so far from water! I’m working on that, by the way. Getting better, even. This is the first time I’ve gone so far! But you’re still here! I can’t believe I found you.”

Her touch was cold, but somehow everywhere she touched left heat lingering behind.

His head was swimming. Nothing made a goddamn lick of sense.

It must be a dream. Everything was asleep around him, unbothered, as though nothing else in the world existed. No way Rosie wouldn’t be awake and barking like mad if this were real. No way he’d be too stunned to move, to push her away from being so maddeningly close it made his pulse race. As stunning as she was, he was a married man. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

Her hands wandered further, her fingertips brushing down his neck to his chest, resting on his buttoned shirt. There was something on her mind, it was apparent in how she bit her lip, how her eyes drifted. But when she looked back up at him, those big eyes meeting his, it seemed she’d figured out whatever was eating her up inside.

“I like you like this, Cooper.”

She knew his name. She knew his damn name, and he knew nothing except that there was some kind of odd familiarity about this mysterious stranger he was too brain fogged to place. Before he could think of anything nearly resembling coherent she’d caught his lips in a kiss. And not just any kiss, the kind that licked up him in a fiery blaze, like shooting straight whiskey that reached all the way to his goddamn bones.

A stronger man would have resisted. He was not that man.

Was all a dream anyway. No way this could be real.

She was halfway on top of him already, straddling his lap and squeezing his legs with hers. When she lowered herself down on him, grinding against his clothed crotch, he shuddered, eyes almost as wide as hers.

There wasn’t a single undergarment on her under that thing trying to pass as a dress.

That right there broke any little bit of resolve he had left. It should worry him, a woman out alone wearing nearly nothing at all, but with dream logic it didn’t bother him one bit. He groaned and reached down for the buttons on his pants, working them open one by one and shifting to get the damn things off as best he could with her on top of him. Thankfully she was fast on her feet and shifted her weight too to make it easier. She went for his shirt in the meantime, those buttons quickly coming undone under her quick fingers.

He didn’t bother shrugging the shirt off, leaving it open but still on his shoulders. It didn’t stop her from eating him up with those big doe eyes of hers, and damn if that wasn’t immensely flattering. He knew he wasn’t young anymore, but it didn’t seem to make a nick of difference as far as she was concerned. If anything, she was staring too much. The thought passed him that his sleeping mind was trying to screw with him; dreamed up a gorgeous overeager vision who wouldn’t know what to do next. But he was soon disabused of that notion by her taking his cock in hand and lining him up with her, holding him steady. She knew exactly what she wanted and she was eager to take it.

The angle was wrong on her first try. She rubbed her clit on him instead and he jerked in her hands, but it was worth it to hear her softly moan, then chuckle afterwards, shaking her head a little before trying again. The next was closer, and it took only a little tilting of her hips before he slid home.

“Christ, darlin’-”

She laughed, her eyes dark and playful, and it turned to a breathy sigh as she rocked back against him, getting situated. “Mm... You feel good, cowboy.”

That should be his line, minus the cowboy bit anyway, but his brain was still catching up to the situation. To having this beautiful woman gladly in his lap, leaning over him, her brown hair framing her face like a dark halo as she rocked on him. But where his mind was lagging, his body gladly took over, eagerly matching her pace.

He reached up, running his hands over her dress and her legs beneath them. She was impressively strong, her thighs firm under the slippery fabric. He held onto her hips, keeping her steady, but soon leaned up instead, trying to look into those gorgeous eyes of hers.

Their breath mixed. Her eyes dipping to his lips was his only hint before she leaned in and made them meet.

She kissed him like he was water and she hadn’t had a drop in days, chasing his mouth the second they got pulled apart from each other by how they moved. She kissed him like she’d been waiting forever, and it should be overwhelming but god it felt good, it felt right in a way that coiled inside him tight and might drive him mad if he dwelled on it. He groaned into their kiss, and she sighed back, and from then on it was a loop, feeding into one another.

Then she shoved him back with surprising strength. He lay back, choosing not to fight her. She went for his hand, grabbing it. Wove their fingers between each other. She watched him, staring right into his soul, and he was helpless to stare back. She was moving almost as much back and forth as bouncing on him, whispering nonsense between her breaths and moans, and he figured he knew what the issue was. He took his free hand, slipping it under her dress and to where their bodies met, giving her something to rub her clit on. She immediately shuddered, clenching around him before she caught herself.

“Better?” The word came out softer than he’d meant.

“Yes, just like that, yes-”

Yes ma’am. Like that.

She rode him like that, grinding against his thumb, squeezing her fingers in his in time with her pace. Her wrist brushed against him and somehow that competed with the building pleasure in his core, flashes of white-hot want that gripped him and left him gasping with it, almost too much. She has a scar too, he realized, though he didn’t know how he came to that conclusion. He just knew she had one, a mark almost in the same spot as his and that was what was doing it.

As to what the hell it meant? No idea.

She was making higher, breathy noises, fluttering around him, and he wasn’t going to last, not with her doing that. It was only luck that she hit her peak first, tilting her head back and letting out a choked cry. He fucked her through it, rocking into her a few more times before he was gone.

They stayed there for a while, both panting in the chill air, riding out their highs. It felt like ages before she sat up from him, and he moved just enough for her to lie on her side beside him, taking his right arm back and laying it across his forehead.

Somehow with all of that still nothing had woken up. It was only them aware of this stolen moment.

Idly, his hand wandered, gently squeezing her fingers before he let go, running his thumb to her wrist. Sure enough, he soon felt a raised patch of skin there nearly where he had one too. It wasn’t completely the same, a more jagged cut rather than a smooth line. But he was right, she did have a scar, one that throbbed with her heartbeat as he ran his thumb along it.

There was something so familiar about this. Not about the sex, no way in hell he could have forgotten that. No, something about her in general, and especially about this scar. Something he should have remembered but just couldn’t grasp, a hazy thing flickering from the depths, just barely out of reach.

His attention was pulled away by her leaning up to look at him. Her hair was partly in her face, but she tucked it behind her ear. She was still staring, like she’d never get tired of watching him.

“Let’s get going. It’s time.”

His head was still swimming, and in his haze he somehow seemed to understand more what she was asking than he should. He should be wondering what she meant. Part of him did, but another part somehow knew.

That part knew he had to decline, because once he said yes there was no going back. “Can’t.”

“Huh? Why not?”

Her voice was soft, but there was a jolt at the back of his mind. A warning to chose his next words very carefully. But that part of him, that same one that knew what she’d asked, it knew how to navigate these dangerous waters.

“The cows, they gotta... Gotta bring ‘em back. And Rosie, ’n Janice...”

Barb. Janey. But their names got caught in his throat, not leaving his lips.

A moment passed. The air was thick again, bleeding tension. But then she leaned over him and it passed, as though it never was. She chuckled and shook her head, as though recalling an old joke. “Ugh, I can’t believe Norm was right. ‘There’s always some unfinished business humans need to wrap up’. He’s never even met a human.”

He had no idea who this ‘Norm’ was or what she was talking about again. And somehow, probably because this was a dream or maybe because they’d just had sex, it didn’t make a lick of difference. Where the hell did he conjure up such a pretty face from? She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever set his eyes on. He couldn’t think of a single other person who’d ever set him on fire like this. Not even Barb, and she was a commanding presence in any room she set foot in. But this lady, this woman who didn’t look five years over her societal debut yet had a glint in her eye and a pull to her smile that told him she was far older, she was absolutely magnetic, especially still slightly rosy with sweat. Wasn’t a man who set eyes on her who’d be able to ignore her, not one with working eyes anyway.

“How long will you need?”

The answer came from him unbidden. “A day.”

A day before his fate came for him, he felt, even if he had no damn idea what that fate would be. Even if he wasn’t a huge believer in fate and destiny to begin with.

"Just one?" Her eyes lit up again with mischief. "Norm thought you’d ask for a week.” She leaned in, her lips catching against his neck like she was ready to bite. So goddamn real, not the airy-fairy shit of his typical dreams.

“Okie dokey. Take a day, then come find me. I’ll be waiting, cowboy.”

He sat up, hat on his face.

Shoving it aside, he blinked, squinting against the light. The sun was halfway over the horizon, the darkness only barely holding on to the west, ceding more and more ground to the day each passing second.

His shirt was buttoned. His pants were on, with none of the clammy chill he would have expected. There was no woman beside him, nor any nearby. The only smell lingering was the crisp chill of the summer air turning to fall.

Just a dream. Just a dream.

Just the most vivid dream of his forty-seven years of life. And it wasn’t about his wife.

Or anything real, even.

He sighed. Today was gonna be a long day.

There was no reason to delay. He set out early, waking Rosie up with some pets and a bit of jerky. On a better day he would have let Janice and the cows graze some before bringing them back. There would have been no rush as long as the weather wasn’t looking like it’d turn nasty, and this was a perfect late summer day with barely a cloud in the sky.

On a day like this one, they were gonna have to graze closer to the house. Janice would be cranky with him, saddling her up without her getting a good slow start to the morning, but he didn’t want to be out here any longer than he had to be. He’d give her some alfalfa when they got home to make up for it. Maybe a few carrots too.

“C’mon, ladies. Up and at ‘em. We got ground to cover.”

In fairness, most of the cows were already awake and dining. Janice herself was nuzzling at the ground by the time he was ready to saddle her back up, though the look she gave him was still morose. It got a little chuckle out of him despite the circumstances.

He’d still need to deal with that strange horse, and likely the rider that had come here on her, but he put them to the back of his mind for now. There wasn’t too much out here dangerous for a person unless they were injured bad, and if she was, well, why was she riding on his land in the first place?

He’d get to it, just... Later.

He knew it wasn’t the charitable decision. If that horse’s rider was injured, every day counted. But a part of Cooper feared what he’d find if he went back down there. Last night’s dream was a strange one for him, and even if it weren’t it felt too weighted, too real.

Besides, there was no reason to think someone was injured. Least, not yet. No blood, no calling for help, no signs of any kind of struggle. Hell, even the horse hadn’t seemed very concerned. Not every animal was a dog who’d bark and beg until someone took notice, but a horse usually still had some kind of loyalty to its master. The lady had likely only hurt her pride.

That’s what he told himself as he led his cows back south.

Rosie was at least in good spirits. She took her job very seriously, circling around the herd and keeping it in line. The moment a cow started to wander she was at its heels, urging it to keep going. So far so good. All in all, they were making pretty good time. They were nearly at the well, he could see it in the distance...

There was something at the well. Another shape standing there.

Barb?

Nah, that wasn’t Barb. Barb would never leave her hair loose outside, not even to get water. Not unless there was an emergency, and he wasn’t getting any kind of sense of urgency out of its movements. It wasn’t Janey either, Janey was far smaller than whatever this was.

He could swear the thing waved at him. Gestured at him.

Dark hair, grey something or other flipping in the wind-

His heart started to race.

Calm down, idiot! Janice would feel his stress, and so would the cows. Deep breaths. One in, one out. He looked up, back at the well, determined to confront whatever it was that was there.

There was nothing. Nothing more than the same old well he’d crossed hundreds of times.

So this is what it felt like to go mad, huh. Somehow he’d been expecting it to feel freeing. Wild. Not like stones at the pit of his stomach and an ice pick digging into his head. To be drowning with guilt, those same stones tied to his legs trying to pull him under.

“...” He clicked his tongue, pressed in with his heels. “Let’s go, Janice.”

“Dadddddyyyyy!”

Janey had to have been waiting for him by the window. The second he crossed the front gate she shot out the door, running to meet him.

“There’s my baby girl!”

By the time he'd dismounted Janey was right there, looking up at him with all the joy in the world. Rosie rushed over, barking up a storm, and his daughter giggled as she was sniffed and licked up a storm. Rosie, surprisingly, was always good with her, unless Janey was running around and the dog thought it was a game to herd her.

“Rosie, heel! Heel, girl! Alright, c’mere Janey!”

She knew what was coming and lifted her arms with the biggest smile so he could pick her up, twirling her round. She laughed and laughed, an endless well of joy. He only set her down after two spins because she might not get a breath in if he didn’t.

“Now what’s my girl been up to today?”

“Mr. Bun Bun and Ms. Goose held a disciplinary hearing before Congress today.”

He had to struggle not to laugh. She had to have read something in the paper. “Oh yeah? And what were Mr. Bun Bun and Ms. Goose's findings?”

Her tone became very serious. “Mr. Honey Bear was misappropriating government funds.”

She had definitely been reading something in the paper. Not sure she should be reading all that, but it didn’t seem to be doing any real harm, at least. “Yeah? And what was the consequence for Mr. Honey Bear?”

Janey blinked. “What’s a consequence?”

“Somethin’ that happens because of something you do, honey. That’s a consequence.”

“Oh. Her consequence was...” She grinned, reveling in the drama of the moment, “Death.”

... On second thought, maybe she was too young to be reading the paper. He’d have to talk to Barb. For now, he tried to take it in stride. “I see. Government’s working fast these days.”

“Mmhmm!” But just as quickly as she’d brought it up, Janey moved to another topic. “Can you read me a story, daddy?”

“Not just yet, honey. Later. Gotta get the cows situated and take care of Janice first.”

Her eyes lit up. “Can I brush her?”

He chuckled. He knew she’d go for that. “Sure you can. Remember what I told you?”

“‘Talk to her so she knows you’re there. Don’t walk behind her or right in front of her, walk on the side. Be gentle.’”

He smiled and patted her on the head. “That’s my girl.” He patted her on the head. “Where’s your momma?”

“She’s inside.” Janey leaned in, and he knelt down to listen. “She’s in a bad mood.”

“Oh is she now?” There were a few things that could be the cause, him spending the night out being one. “I’ll see if I can’t cheer her up, alright? You run along now. I’ll come get you when Janice and I are ready, okay?”

“Okay!” And there she went, Rosie following along. Maybe Janey would go toss her a stick, she loved that. He smiled as he went inside, looking for his wife.

He found Barb in her study, a stack of written receipts and a checkbook in front of her. She was always a good budget balancer, frankly better at it than he was. Not a hair of hers was out of place, not even the stubborn curls along the sides of her head. Right now she was scowling, entirely focused on the paper in front of her.

“Careful, you’ll burn through it staring at it like that. Probably burn through the table too.”

The expression cleared when she looked up and saw him. “Coop! You’re back. Welcome home.”

She stood from her chair and they hugged. Kissed. Chastely.

“You took an extra day.”

“Yeah. Some of the cows took a while to round up.” And there was that horse, but he didn’t know how to broach that topic quite yet. He’d think on that one. “What’s wrong? That’s a serious scowl you had there.”

“Oh, you know. The same as usual.”

“That face didn’t look like the same as usual.”

“It’s...” She sighed in frustration, turning on her heel to pace. She was a pacer when something was truly getting on her nerves. “It’s everything at once, Coop. Perla’s daughter is due any day now, so she wants time off-”

“Congratulations. We should send her a card and basket.”

“— And two of the farmhands are sick at the worst possible time, and I have three letters here notifying me of increasing prices in the next year on alfalfa, and for any iron equipment, and for calves themselves. Everything all at once. And it isn’t the first year this has happened. You know that.”

No, it wasn’t the first year. But it wasn’t as though they were scraping by either. They were doing better than most and wanted for nothing. It could be so much worse, he’d seen it firsthand many times over the long years. Of course, that wasn’t what she wanted to hear, he knew that.

She sighed, curled her lip over her teeth in thought. “We don’t need to do all of this, you know.”

This conversation again. He knew where it was going. They’d only had it a dozen times. “You knew who I was when you married me, Barb. We might have met in the city, but I’m not city folk, you know that.”

She smiled, syrupy sweet, but it didn’t reach her eyes. This wouldn’t be the last time they had this conversation. She was a stubborn woman and she came from the city. He thought she took well to ranching, but there was always that same tension between them. He didn’t know where communication had broken down between them in the courtship process that she thought they wouldn’t be here most of the time, but what was done was done. Barb liked the city, whereas he liked it to visit. Besides, he didn’t want city life for Janey. She was only six but she was taking to ranching like a duck to water. She could be self-sufficient out here, trained in a real job. She wouldn’t be paraded around and sold off to the highest bidder out here like so many high society women he’d made the acquaintance of over the years.

“I just think we should consider taking a less hands-on approach, Coop. We don’t need to be here all the time. Someone else could manage it for us.”

He hated the idea. But he didn’t want to keep beating a horse they’d surely beaten to death by now. Hell, it was probably so beaten down at this point it could be used to fertilize the hay. He still didn’t see how taking a step back and getting more people involved with their business was supposed to help with their profits, but then Barb was smarter with money than he was. He sighed. He didn’t want to argue. “I’ll think about it, Barb.” But he doubted he’d come away with any change in his mind.

Still, it was something, and she smiled a bit wider. “That’s all I’m asking for.”

He tried to smile back, but all he managed was a twitch of the lips.

“I gotta go back out tomorrow. Some lady’s lost out there.”

His wife sat up straight, setting her book on her lap. “A lady? How do you know?”

“Found her horse. Had a real fancy bridle and no saddle on.”

“Is this horse in our stables?”

“Nah. She took off on me before I could grab her reins.”

“Hm.” It was more trouble added to her pile, he could tell that much from her reaction.

He didn’t mention the dark-haired shape he’d seen by the well. It was probably nothing more than a trick of his dead-tired mind. A little thing like that, hair untied and in nothing but underclothes wouldn’t be the lady riding that horse. And what were the chances there were two women lost on his land, much less one that stepped out of his dream? Near infinitesimal, he reckoned.

The scar on his wrist prickled again, like the memory was making the old wound come back to life.

She couldn’t be real. If she was real he was a doomed man.

Barb was talking, and he made himself listen. “... Arrange a search party. If there’s an injured woman out there-”

“Nah, no need. I’ll go out tomorrow. I know these parts better than anyone else. If I don’t find her or her horse we’ll look at gettin’ others involved. No one’s come ‘round looking for our missing lady, she probably hasn’t been out there long.”

She looked at him oddly, enough to wonder if he’d said something strange. But after a good few second pause, Barb smiled and stood up, heading towards him. “Alright. We’ll give it a day. I forgot how private you are about our land.”

He chuckled. “Just like to keep our business our own, Barb.” At least, as much as they were able to. Barb might have been a city girl, but he’d spent most of his life out on the land and preferred it that way. The city had its charm, and he was always one to lend a hand to their neighbours with a smile, but he tried to keep to himself and his family. That’s how it was.

“Make sure you say goodbye to Janey before you go. She was asking when you were coming home an hour after you left.”

“I will, don’t you worry.” He owed her a bedtime story anyways.

She chuckled and kissed him, and he kissed her back.

It felt like ash in his mouth. And it was completely unfair on her. It wasn’t her fault he could still remember than damned dream of his, with that girl that was unnaturally beautiful and all-too willing to jump his bones. It was unfair to wonder if Barb didn’t dream similar things, dream some younger eligible bachelor would sweep in and whisk her away from her life. He knew the country hadn’t been her first choice. She’d lived in the city most of her life and was still wistful about it. If she was still there, she could surely meet one.

... What the fuck was he thinking?

Barb was a good woman. A good mother. She didn’t deserve half the shit he was shoving onto her.

Up until today, he thought he was a good husband and father. Now? Now he wasn’t so sure.

Somehow, someway, he must have kept his thoughts off his face. Barb said nothing more as she went back to her book on the couch. Just like any other night.

Janey was too tired to really notice when he set out, tiredly mumbling a “see you, daddy” and opening her eyes before closing them again.

Well, with any luck, he’d be back before too much of the day had gone by, and their mystery lady and that strange horse of hers would be unharmed. Getting a doctor would take even more of the day and bring a lotta questions. He already had plenty, assuming this woman would be in any condition to answer them.

The weather was overcast today, a natural chill in the wind that brought troubled grey clouds. Without the cows it was only a matter of half an hour’s ride for him to get back to the river valley, and he wasn’t riding hard. There were no distracting phantoms today, no long dark hair out of the corner of his eye. It was a simple, quiet ride. Maybe a bit too quiet. He didn’t see so much as a bird before he was on the edge of the ravine, ready to go down to the river.

That’s when things changed. Janice just... Stopped, about 50 feet from the start of the path down.

“Janice. Janice. Hey! Janice!”

He clicked his tongue, he dug in his heels. But not a damn thing he did could compel her to move. She didn’t even flinch, and he was sure his last few digs should have at least made her twitch.

He dismounted from his horse, looking at her from the side. Her eyes should have followed him, but they didn’t. They stared straight ahead. Same with her ears — They should have faced him, but they didn’t. They too stuck right in front of her, completely unmoving, like she was listening to something he couldn’t hear with her whole being.

He waved a hand in front of her left eye, but no one was home. Worried, he checked for her pulse. But no, she was breathing, her heart beating the same as any healthy horse’s would. She was fine, but... But in some kind of trance, or a dreamlike state. Sleepwalking.

He reached for his rifle, strapped to her back. There was nothing to aim it at, not a single other living soul in sight besides him and his horse, but he wanted it in hand anyway. Who knew when that might change?

He was starting to mightily doubt his previous assessment about him having had a dream last night.

The ravine faced him down. It was like he could hear it laughing. C’mon cowboy, what are you gonna do with that gun? He was facing down nature itself, something he did not at all fuckin’ understand. And honestly? It was terrifying. He’d never been so completely out of his depth before now and he couldn’t say he relished the experience.

He could still turn back. Take the reins and try to take Janice home, leave her if she couldn’t follow him. Get the neighbours involved, like Barb had said they should do. Organize a search party for the missing person and her fancy horse. Or better yet, forget the whole damn thing had ever happened. Leave ‘em both to their devices and let God sort it out. Damn woman might be a witch, for all he knew at this point.

It had never occurred to Cooper to believe in witches, and here he was thinking a hypothetical woman was one casting one hell of a spell on him. But he had no other explanation but magic for what had been goin’ on for the past few days. Or he really was goin’ completely barking mad. Those were the only two things he could think of that made a nick of sense.

He could still go back. He could. Run away. Be a coward.

... He wasn’t going to do that. He'd known it from the moment he'd chosen to go back out his door. He might be a doomed man, he might have gotten cursed by a witch or a ghost or a buried totem or who the fuck knew, but by God he'd face this doom head-on.

He put one foot in front of the other. One step. Two. Three. And faster than he wanted, he faced the path down to the river.

As he took his first step down, he swore he could hear those same damned bells, gently ringing. But this time, there was a song too, sung by a high, sweet voice.

He knew that voice. No, not just that.

He’d heard this song before.

A girl was in the lake, staring at him with big, moss-green eyes.

There should be no one around here, not for miles. Their closest neighbours had two boys, both older than him, and the ones further didn’t have girls either. You had to go into town to meet a girl anything close to his age. But that it should be impossible didn’t matter — He’d heard far off singing with words he didn’t understand. So Cooper, like any kid would have, went to check it out. To his surprise, there was a girl there, splashing in the water and laughing between bars.

So he’d done what he thought made the most sense. “Howdy!”

She’d stopped splashing immediately and gasped, like she was caught doing something bad.

“Who are you?”

Her head slipped under, hiding her completely.

“Wait, no! Come back!”

Her head popped up again, her eyes just barely above the surface.

Watching him.

It was hard to figure out what to say. He wanted to ask what she was. Why she was here. What she was doing in the water all alone.

But in the end, he’d introduced himself, like his mama taught him to do when confronted with a pretty girl.

“My name’s Cooper! I’m a cowboy! What’s your name?”

She’d poked her head out of the water again. Stared some more. Then cautiously, carefully, she swam her way over to him, flowing with the water as though she and it were one and the same.

She stopped near the edge, but not quite at it, sitting down. She parted her lips.

“What’s a cowboy?”

What was a cowboy? Pfft. He’d laughed at that. Who didn’t know what a cowboy was?

“It means I take care of cows! And horses, and chickens. It means this whole ranch is my pa’s, and I’ll run it all one day!”

He gestured wide with his arms, showing off the whole land. She followed the arc of his arms, and her look went from fear to wonder.

“All this? Wow. So like a king? Like my father!”

“Well, not exactly... Wait, like your father? There aren’t kings here! This is America!”

She grinned. “He’s not the king of here. He’s the king of somewhere else.”

“You’re lying!”

“Am not!”

“Are too!”

“I’ll prove it to you!” She turned, like she was going to swim away and disappear again, but he was able to grab her arm just before she could.

She turned, looking at him with those big eyes again.

“Wait! I don’t know your name yet!”

She tilted her head, considering it with a “hmm”. She parted her lips.

Her name. Her name was...

It was coming back. Things he’d long forgotten stabbing him through the head. He knew this song. He’d felt the temperature drop and the air get heavy like this before.

It used to happen all the time around her. It was baked into her very self.

He knew her. He knew her. Her and her beautiful hair, sometimes tied back with those green plants she’d worn in her hair. Her jade beads, those eyes that never left him and had watched him in a very different way than they ever had before two nights ago.

They aged differently, he supposed, because she looked nowhere near as old as he was, and he was sure she’d had a year or two on him when they first met. But if there was ever any doubt, her matching scar with his proved it. The lake girl he’d spent the summer chasing and being chased by and the specter that haunted him were one and the same exotic creature, something that took human shape but wasn’t, by strict definition, human at all.

Now what? What would he do? What the hell was he supposed to do now?

Shoot her? Shoot her dead with his rifle and hope everything would go back to the way it was? Nothing was going back to how it had been. He could never go back, not unless he got a fucking lobotomy that took away everything coming back into his head. Maybe then, and that was a huge maybe to ask.

Even then, even if he could bring himself to shoot her (and that was two huge maybes he was now askin’ for), he doubted that would stop her. The heavy beat of his pulse told him that. The way every heartbeat seemed to catch on his scar, making it twitch. Some plain ol’ rifle was nothing compared to a force of nature, and more and more he was feeling that’s the kind of thing he was dealing with. Not just a person, but an unstoppable force, hellbent on... Him.

And as much as he wanted to think of himself as an immovable object, well... He was down here moving his feet, descending deeper and deeper down towards the river, feeling the air turn thick with a strange, leaden scent.

There was a glow to the water that couldn’t be attributed to the sun. Blue-green threads, glowing and twisting together. Faint pinpricks of light, like fireflies, glittered like the stars themselves before making themselves scarce.

Of course the horse was there, right in the middle of the deepest part of the river. He’d expected nothing less.

The girl herself, though, wasn’t, or not that he could see. Nothing could surprise him anymore, after what he’d witnessed in the last two days.

“... Where is she?”

The horse stared, flicking an ear. It moved towards him, walking rather than swimming. The river wasn’t so deep that it needed to swim. It made it to the edge, snorted, and tilted its head towards him.

It wore the bridle with its golden bells. The pale blue leather picked up on the water’s shine, beckoning to him.

A choice.

No one said a thing, but he felt it was a choice. Not a demand, not something bein’ forced upon him. If he wanted to he could leave. He could leave this whole damn affair behind him and pretend it never happened. Make some excuse to Barb, pick up Janey again and kiss her on the head and throw everything, everything he was feeling and remembering down the tightest well of his heart and brick it over. Let it cry and scream on sleepless nights until it withered away into nothing but a whisper.

Hell, he could be forceful. He could shoot the horse dead right here and now. That was a choice. He had his rifle right on his back.

He could do it.

He could.

...

He reached forward, fingers curling around the reins.

If he was going to turn back, he’d have done it long before now. He never would have come out here at all. Every step he took down that damn ravine was already making his choice. This was just confirming it.

“Lead the way, girl.”

She was a bit taller than him. He didn’t ask how old she was, and neither did she. It hadn’t mattered to a pair of kids without much other company. But playing was hard when one person didn’t want to leave the water.

“Why don’t you come up here?”

“I can’t! I have to stay in the water.”

“Says who?”

“Says my dad.”

Her dad? “Is he under the water too?”

“He’s- Not exactly. He’s not here. I’m alone.”

He hadn’t thought much of that at the time. It was something a child would just accept, just like a girl sticking her head outta the water and saying she had to stay in it. “Have you ever tried?”

“Tried what?”

“Getting out of the water.”

“I... No.”

She was unsteady on her legs, the first time she’d made it to the edge. Like a newborn calf, wet and slimy and learning to walk. He’d held her up with all the strength he’d been able to muster until she shakily managed her first few steps.

“Come on! You put your weight on them, just like this! I’ve got you, I won’t let you fall.”

One step, then two. A third, her mouth set into a determined line. She made it to him, stumbling on the last step. He just barely managed to catch her, stumbling too in the rocks, but somehow he’d managed not to make a total fool of himself by breaking a promise he couldn’t keep.

She’d looked stunned at first, shocked that anyone would choose to move outside the water. Then she’d looked right at him and grinned with a smile that put the sun to shame.

How could he have forgotten that smile of hers?

He shuddered, his breath visible against the weighted air.

He shouldn’t see his breath. Shouldn’t be shivering. It should still be too warm for that. Hell, summer wasn’t even over for a few days from now.

He might have the reins, but the horse was leading him, taking him where she would. The light off the water flickered and twisted, glowing the same silvery light as the moon.

“Where’re we goin’, beautiful?”

The horse didn’t reply, flicking her ear.

It was a pointless question. His heart already knew.

After she could walk, things were easy. Walking soon became running, became tugging him around between sights. They saw birds, they saw squirrels, they saw rabbits and bugs and all sorts of things. She’d eaten a bug, plucked it right from the air and stared for a moment before putting it in her mouth and chomping down.

“Eww! Gross!”

He’d said her name too, and she’d laughed and asked what was so gross about grabbing a snack like it was the most wise thing anyone had ever said. At the time, it felt like it was.

He’d never known a woman who’d eat a bug before, and doubted he’d met one since. He remembered thinking she must be starvin’ if she wanted to eat bugs. So he brought her things from then on out, when he was able. A caramel from a trip to town. Some berries. Once he’d even smuggled popcorn from the county fair back in his pockets. They were barely intact, cold crushed little pieces by the time he got them to her, but she stared at them with wonder and tried them anyways.

Of all the things he gave her, she liked caramel the best.

Then she brought him things too, food she somehow managed to keep dry and warm even though she lived in the water. At least, he thought she did. She never said exactly, her eyes crinkling with her secrets behind ‘em. But she brought cakes, mostly, deliciously sweet and soft things wrapped in colorful paper, or long strips of venison and dried fruit. Fish, once, perfectly cooked and buttered. He’d stayed out late that night and gotten scolded by his ma and given a week’s worth more chores, but it was worth every moment.

They saw a deer once, watching them as much as they watched it, still as a statue. For minutes they’d stared. It felt longer, like hours passed with the two watching it and it watching them, back and forth into an unending loop. An ouroboros, though his ten year old self hadn’t known that word at the time. It had been the one to look away first, going back to grazing.

Her name. Her name...

She taught him to swim. Not even his pa knew how.

“If you breathe in slowly, you’ll float on the water. It’s all about the air, see? Like this. No, don’t get stiff! Relax, relax! If you spread your limbs, the water holds you better. Trust me, I’ve been doing this my whole life!”

He was scared as hell, but there was no way on God’s green Earth he’d have admitted that to her. He’d rather die.

“You’re doing great, Cooper. I’ve got you.”

In hindsight, she could have easily drowned him. All it would take was bringing him past where he couldn’t stand up and pushing him down into the water. He might have fought for a while, but inevitably he would have tired himself out and not been able to get back somewhere safe. But she never did. She taught him to float, to not fight the water, how to hold his breath without holding his nose so he could use both arms to get around.

She looked like a ghost in the water, twirling around him effortlessly, dipping under and popping up right by his side, her dark hair a curtain over her face until she shoved it out of the way and showed him her eyes.

He always had to leave earlier than he wanted to. She’d always watch him go with those same wide eyes.

“I’ll be back tomorrow! Same time! Wait for me!”

“Okie dokey, cowboy!”

She winked at him one time, lying on the surface of a rock, back to the sun.

Even then his stomach had coiled into knots.

His boots were soaked through, his socks and pants no better. It was only by some miracle, or perhaps the power he knew his companion must have, that kept his feet from going numb with the cold. But he knew where they were heading, and it wasn’t far now.

Sure enough, one footstep after another, the river made its winding way to the lake.

It was midday now, and finally, finally, the sun was beating out on the chill, though the air itself still felt heavy in his lungs.

A hand tugged his forward. He turned.

The horse was gone. There was only the woman with the dark hair, looking at him as though the Earth spun round him rather than the sun in the sky. The bridle was changed, twisting round her arm like a corded bracelet. Horse and rider were one and the same. No wonder there was no saddle to find; she had no need for one.

Barb never looked at him that way. Barb was a good woman. A practical woman, and a good wife. But their arrangement was as much business as pleasure. He needed a wife and heir. She needed a husband after her first died. A “mutually beneficial arrangement”, she’d called it, and practically speaking he was inclined to agree. He wasn’t getting any younger.

God, he was so stupid. He couldn’t help but laugh. This was how he was gonna justify it to himself, huh.

The girl, the lady, whatever she was, was something else. Not human at all, though right now she looked the part damn near perfect, ‘cept for maybe the sheen on her skin still catching the light in an odd way and her odd choice of dress. She was something far older, something probably whispered about in fairy tales but that the rest of the world forgot. And by chance, through sheer circumstance, they had found one another once, and now again.

All this time, she’d been waiting. And all this time, a part of him had been waiting too. He’d just forgotten ‘bout it.

“I noticed,” She said, suddenly turning with a mischievous expression, “you haven’t been talking much. What was it you used to say? ‘Cat got your tongue’?”

Well it was hard to say much when he was experiencing so much in such a short amount of time and remembering a lost sweetheart. But telling a woman you’d forgotten her was just begging for trouble. He wasn’t that stupid. He tried to play it off with a bit of a smile. “... Just a lot happenin’.”

“You didn’t forget me, did you? Humans are very forgetful creatures.”

“Nope.” His lie came out quick. Maybe too quick; she gave him a slight look that told him she didn’t quite believe him and snorted. Least she didn’t make a big deal of it.

It should have been sooner, far sooner than this. All of this could have been avoided. Now he was in middle age, worn away from the years and his work. He had a wife he married to have a child so someone would inherit his land. His cows. His horses and chickens.

“You’re going to love it, Cooper. I have so much to show you.”

“Where were you? Where’ve you been holed up for so long?”

She frowned, her fingers tensing in his. “I could ask you the same thing.” But she sighed a moment later. “I’m sorry. It’s been longer for you, hasn’t it? My father, he wasn’t fond of humans. He found out where I was spending my time and he took it... Well, poorly! That’s why I couldn’t keep coming here. That’s why I was crying last time. I came back a few times over the years, in the spring and the fall, but you were never here. I thought... I also thought I’d never see you again.”

“I thought the same, darlin’.” But even worse, he’d forgotten, and not just the little details. No, he’d let himself forget her, pretended nothing had happened. And the consequences of his forgetfulness were gonna bite him in the ass.

He should stop this. He needed to stop this.

But she smiled, those dark green eyes of her seeming to glint brighter, pulling him further in. “We can’t change what’s happened. But we’ll have ages left ahead of us to know each other again, cowboy.”

Cowboy. The way she said that. Jesus H Christ.

“... Your daddy gonna be a problem?” Had she thought about that? He bet she did, but a part of him hoped she hadn’t, that she’d have to step back and stop being so goddamn alluring for a minute so he could get his bearings. So he could slow things down and force himself to say I have a wife already. I have a daughter. It’s been too long. You don’t know me anymore.

They didn’t. Truly. And yet his heart wouldn’t stop racing, and he couldn’t manage to bring himself to try to escape. There was a deep part of him that felt, for the first time in ages, peace. A strange sense of rightness that was entirely undeserved.

“No. He... No. He has no power over me anymore. Or anyone else.”

“He die or somethin’?”

“It’s... It’s complicated. I’ll tell you later. You’re actually involved, in a way, but... I don’t want to think about it right now. Later.”

He was involved? He didn’t see how that was possible, but that was just one more thing joining the pile of absolute fucking revelations today Cooper let it go. There were far more pressing matters on his mind.

He wanted to say he was a man possessed, that it was all the pull of some spell. That would be an easy lie, easy to justify to himself. In part it felt that way, but it wasn’t a big enough part to make a real excuse. The truth was his forgotten sweetheart set him alight in a way no one else ever had before and no one else had since. He was no philosopher or great poet, but it was though they were two parts of the same coin, like their very souls were meant to twist together and stay tied.

And people other than him were gonna pay the price for it.

He loved Barb, didn’t he? He sure as hell loved his Janey..!

But though his heart might be torn, his body kept moving. Descending into the lake, caught between those eyes and her arms, a gallows march he was all-too willingly walking down.

He was a goddamn liar as well as stupid.

“We’ll make a blood pact. That way there’s no going back. It’s a promise.”

“In blood? You... You mean that?”

“If it’ll make sure we can stay together, yeah I mean it!”

She’d been crying when he found her. She tried to wipe the tears and choke down her sobs, but he could hear her from a quarter up the ravine. She had to go, she said. Her dad, the one he’d never seen who never wanted her outta the water, was angry about something or other. If he found him, there could be real danger for him.

He probably said he wasn’t scared. It’s something he would have said. Probably said he’d protect her too. But she shook her head. Said it would be safer if she didn’t come back for a while.

But she wanted to come back, she said. She would come back for him as soon as she could. The second she was able.

And little lovesick fool he’d been, he suggested the most serious pact a boy could think of after swearing on their pinkies or a double dog dare.

But to her it had been more. In hindsight it meant a hell of a lot more and he hadn’t picked up on that. It was in her shocked expression, in her quick chuckle and how her eyes darted down, how she bit her lip for a moment and then looked back up at him like she was gonna start crying all over again. “You really mean it...”

Didn’t he just say that? “Yeah. I do.”

She smiled that beautiful bright smile of hers. “... Okie dokey, cowboy.”

The warning was in how she kissed him. It was a gentle kiss, barely more than a peck. They were kids, after all. But that she kissed him at all was new and sent his heart aflutter and his head buzzing.

How could he forget kissing her? How could he forget how she stared at him, and the way it made him blush?

She slapped her legs, focusing on their task. “Okay! If we’re going to do this, we need iron. It... It has to be iron. Nothing else will cut me.”

“Really? Not even the sharpest knife in the world?”

It was a fool question from a fool boy stunned from his first kiss, but she hadn’t minded. She just shrugged. “Iron or bust. Or I could bite myself, maybe.”

“I don’t have any on me.”

She looked at her arm, considering it. “... Can you get some?”

He’d get some. She didn’t need to bite herself. He didn’t remember his exact words, but he remembered insisting that wouldn’t be necessary in some form or another.

She’d laughed at that, eyes glittering like the water itself. “Hurry. I don’t have much time.”

They hadn’t had sheep in years, not since his father was his age, but they still had a pair of iron shears from those days gone past in the barn. He was quiet, he was quick, grabbing a bucket to stand on to reach them on the top shelf. His pa didn’t notice him come in, nor did he notice him go, too busy with one of the horses. None of the ranch hands noticed either or if they did no one said anything. Why would they? He was always scampering around doing something or other.

He clutched those shears to his chest as he ran and ran, what felt like forever but couldn’t have been longer than an hour. Still, his legs had burned and he coughed when he made it back. She was still there, like she said, but the moment he stepped back into the river she flinched back, shuddering.

“What’s wrong?”

She shook her head. “Nothing. It’s the iron, just... Doing what it does.” She sat back up, gritting her teeth. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”

She sure didn’t look it, but he knew by now she was stubborn about the damnedest things. And so was he, being honest. So he got closer, and she made herself get up and towards him, meeting him in the middle where the water reached up to his knees.

He was sure he heard her curse under her breath, something about how she should have bitten herself. He’d choked out a laugh, he remembered that much, and she’d managed to laugh back.

It was harder to draw blood with the shears than he’d thought it would be. It took opening them up and pressing his finger to the blade.

He breathed in, trying to draw it fast. It didn’t take, only leaving a red indent against his skin. He had to try again, this time going slower and shoving against it hard.

“Ow!”

Blood welled up from his wound, but blood never scared him, not even as a kid. He offered her the shears.

She reached for them, shied back, then balled her fingers and lunged for them. She got her fingers around a handle, shuddering again like she’d be sick but holding firm, cutting her finger in one quick, dramatic flourish.

She bled pale green, like the color of foam on the water.

How’d she blush normal if she bled green? It was a mystery, like so much about her if he sat down and thought about it. He wasn’t thinking about it then, just staring at her trembling hands and trying to take the shears away.

“No! Not yet, one... One more. One more.

She rested the shears on his wrist, but her hands were shaking too hard. He didn’t really understand why one wasn’t enough, but it seemed important to her. He trusted her.

He held her hand to steady it. Held it as she pulled the blade.

That one skipped the sting and went straight to a solid burn. It hurt a lot worse. He yelled. But before he could stare and get stuck on it (and cry), she shoved the shears back into his hands.

“Now you do me.”

“I-I can’t-”

“Yes you can. I know you can.” She was still shaking a bit, but she chuckled. “It was your idea, remember? Don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet.”

It was his idea. And he wasn’t gettin’ cold feet. It was just...

“Are you sure about this?”

“Yes. I’m sure.” She nodded for emphasis, and she was pale, but it didn’t sound like she was putting on a brave face. She really was sure in this. In him.

Okay. For her, he could do it. For her he pressed the shears to her outstretched wrist. She started shaking like a leaf again the second the iron was against her skin, but she reached out with her other hand, gripping his hand to hold it steady just like he’d just done for her.

The cut he gave her wasn’t nearly as pretty and clean as the one she’d left on him. She was shaking too hard, and the whimper as the shears dug in and drew blood ripped his heart from his chest.

“Lucy!”

He remembered. That was her name. Lucy.

“I’m okay..! Nhh, it’s okay, it’s okay...”

She slumped over onto him, making him stumble back, but he didn’t fall on his ass into the river, thank god. He somehow kept his footing and held onto her.

“The iron-”

He threw the shears behind him. They hit the rocky shore behind him with a clang.

Her breath was heavy, ragged, but with the shears away from her immediate person she seemed to catch her second wind. She looked up, eyes wet and glossy, and pressed their hands, then their arms, together. Their wounds weren’t perfectly aligned, but it was close enough.

It stung again, but not as badly as the first cut. Their blood, dark and pale, mixed together at two points. It ran down their arms, red and green mixing together, twisting rivulets that ended at their elbows and dripped into the river below.

As the drops hit the water, he could swear they glowed for a moment before disappearing, swept away by the current.

“... I promise I’ll find you again. No matter how long it takes. If it takes me eternity.”

“I’ll be right here. Wherever you want to go, I’ll go with you. Whatever you want to do- I’ll try it. Anything. You’re my best friend, Lucy.”

“You’re my best friend too, Cooper. My very best friend.”

And he remembered thinking, but not saying out loud, that he didn’t think he’d love anyone else the way he thought he loved her.

He didn’t know how long they stayed in that spot. It had felt like forever. He was lucky it was summer, or he would have been shivering after not too long. Her hand drifted down, their fingers lacing between each other’s. She held on.

“I’ll bring you home... Show you where I come from...”

“Lucy... Lucy, wake up.” She was swaying. She said she was okay, but he wasn’t so sure. She groaned, her fingers tightening around his as she tried to support her own weight.

“Nn... That was awful...” She chuckled, then sighed. “Should have just bitten us...”

Then she stiffened, turning her head towards the northwest. Upriver.

It felt as though the air dropped several degrees, like it became snow trying to crush him down.

“No... No no no... He knows I’m here. You have to go, Cooper. You have to go now.”

What? “Who’s he? What’s happening?”

“My dad! I’m not supposed to be here! He’ll kill you! Go! Run!”

He stepped back, scrambling towards his discarded boots. He put them on, but as he did his eyes darted around him. The shears. Where were the shears? They were iron. If they made Lucy step back, made her shake just from touching them, would they work against her dad? Could he protect her?

There they were! He scrambled in the rocks, running for them-

Something hard slammed into his side, throwing him into the river.

His vision went black.

“Lucy.”

She looked to him, eyes a bright, paler green.

“That’s your name, ain’t it. Lucy.”

“Yes. That’s my name.”

Lucy. Shining light itself, bent into the most beautiful woman alive. The most beautiful woman smirking at him and giving him a light shove. “You did forget!”

“Now forgettin’ is a strong word-”

“You forgot me. I can’t believe it!”

“Well you’re the one who threw me in the river! Probably banged up my head when you did!”

She was both a beautiful woman and a frustrating one, he wouldn’t lie. She stopped, that smirk gone and replaced with a slight frown He had so many questions. But that was the one at the forefront of his mind. “Why’d you do it? You threw me. Looking back it had to have been you. Took me weeks to recover from that, and I barely remembered a damn thing about that summer afterward. It was nothin’ but a murky haze.”

Her frown cleared, replaced with a more tender expression. She even chewed on the edge of her lip. “Like I said, my dad was coming. I knew he’d kill you if he saw us together. He was... Overprotective. Always was. He...” She looked away for a moment. “... He took delight in spreading human guts around after he killed them as a warning to others. I wanted to get you as far away from me as possible as quickly as possible. So... I pushed you into the river, hoping the current was faster than your legs.”

“I nearly died, sweetheart.”

Funny how the pet name rolled off his tongue for her so easily.

“I had to make a choice between something that could kill you and something that absolutely would have killed you. I chose the first option. But...” She bit her lip with perfect teeth. “... I’m sorry you almost died. I didn’t know my own strength.”

“Hmph. You’re lucky, you know.”

She blinked those pretty green doe eyes. “Lucky? For what?”

“For bein’ so goddamn beautiful. Makes it impossible to stay mad at you.”

It really was impossible. He tried, tried to dig in deep for it and the anger just wasn’t there. He had chosen to be here, chosen it again and again. She might have led him to water, but he was the one drinking deep.

They’d promised, after all. Signed, sealed, and delivered in blood.

Just wish he’d remembered. It would have made him less of a piece of shit for doing this.

“... Your name suits you, Luce. Always has.” She was better than this. Deserved better... But she was sure that this was what she wanted or she never would have come here. She wouldn’t look at him the way she did, or kiss him the way she did, or ride him ‘til the cows came home.

So he was just gonna have to do better. Be a better man.

She grinned, wrapping those strong arms around his shoulders...

And shoved his head under.

He didn’t remember his parents finding him washed up on shore. He remembered being back in bed, sweating, nauseous, his blood feeling like it was on fire. Cold towels, doctor visits, his room dark and oppressive. Strange dreams, of being chained underwater, of blood and sea plants wrapped around his throat, of iron swords stabbing him clean through.

It felt neverending. He thought he would die. Sometimes he felt as though his body wasn’t his anymore, staring over himself thrashing and aching and wanting nothing more than for just a second, a moment of relief.

He hadn’t died, obviously. He woke up one day, trembling and weak, but the burning was gone, the agony behind him.

His mother had wept. Even his father had hugged him tightly, arms shaking.

There was only a thin scab left on his arm and a mark round his finger. And those too closed up with time, became nothing more than scars that sometimes ached on cold, rainy days.

His parents kept a closer eye on him after that. He was given more responsibility around the ranch he’d one day be taking up, and more responsibilities meant less time for idle thoughts and actions. They also kept a closer eye on where he was going, and understandably they didn’t want him going to the water alone. Then it was winter and the water froze. By the time he managed to get back on his own in the spring, there was no one there, no strange water girl lying at the bottom or on a particularly large rock.

She had told him it would be harder for her to go there. Maybe she’d given up.

Or she wasn’t real.

It felt like a dream, something he imagined through the fever. Some insane explanation his mind made up to justify how he’d lived getting sucked down the current when by all means they should have found nothing but a body. Maybe she was an imaginary friend he’d given too much credence to. The shears weren’t where they should have been in the stables, but there were plenty of reasons that could have been. Maybe his pa had gotten rid of ‘em. He didn’t ask. Who the hell would have believed him?

And as time went on, he forgot even that. Forgot her hair, her smile, those beautiful doe eyes of hers. Even her name.

Until now.

This was how it ended, huh.

He hadn’t seen it coming. He hadn’t had time to breathe before facing the murky depths head-on. She locked her arm around his head and dragged him under, deeper and deeper down. Through the distant roar of the river joining the lake he could hear her laughing, hear her sing a near-frantic song.

He thrashed, he fought, kicking his legs and squirming in her arms, flailing against her to find anything that might make her let go. Anything to escape, anything for air. He tried elbowing her, tried shoving her. But she was too damn strong, gripping him like a vise, shaking him and tugging him further away from the light.

The lake shouldn’t even go so goddamned deep, but reason had died the past few days and this time was no different.

He couldn’t see up, had no sense of direction. The world was blurred grey and brown-green, little wisps of light flaring all around him. His lungs were on fire as he struggled to find something to reach for. Something had to get him out of this hell! A sharp rock, an old horseshoe, something! But there was nothing, nothing but plants that gave way under his grasping hands, rocks and silt that kicked up more blinding muck into the water.

He was going to die. He was going to fucking drown.

He tried, he tried to hold out. Black spots flooded his stubborn vision as he fought for his body to hold to the last bits of air inside him. But it was a losing battle he stood no chance at.

He could have stayed with his family. With Janey. He could be at home with her right now, reading her a book or teaching her to clean a horse’s hooves. Instead he chased a fucking fantasy, a horse-woman-witch thing that pumped his ego and made him think she would fill a goddamn void in his soul with some endless paradise. It was too good to be true and he should have known it. Sex appeal was the oldest trick in the book ‘bout merpeople. He should have been smarter than this.

He should have known they weren’t friends, much less real lovers. He should have... Should have...

He deserved this.

He gave in. He breathed in, expecting a new wave of fresh panicked agony before he losing consciousness for good.

There was no pain.

He breathed in, and what filled his lungs was definitely the cold heft of water. But there was no burn, no panic response from his body. No coughing, no gasping for the real thing. No, he took it like it was normal to breathe water in and out. It was strange to do, even with all the rest of the strangeness going on for him as of late, but it didn’t hurt.

He wasn’t dead. He wasn’t going to die either.

Absolute relief washed over him, and he wasn’t ashamed to admit he sobbed, curling in on himself in the water. God. He was alive. He was alive!

The arms around him loosened, ghosting over his shoulders and rubbing over his back before letting go completely. The water was becoming clearer, or maybe he could just see through it better, but it was easy to see Lucy float around from behind him, looking every part a gossamer specter with those strange clothes of hers and her hair drifting around her like a cloud.

Her eyes, as ever, big and wide as they stared at him.

What the fuck was that for?

His string of obscenities came out as nothing but gibberish in the water, but she clearly guessed the emotion behind it, because she had the absolute audacity to laugh at him.

That, cowboy, was for forgetting me. Now I think we’re even.

Wretched, awful girl.

Fool that he was, his completely justified anger nearly melted away when she grabbed his jaw and pulled him back in to kiss her long and deep. It might not be a verbal sorry, but he could feel the apology in it, as well as the heat behind it.

He was already fucked past the point of no return. What was one more kiss?

It could have lasted ages. He wouldn’t have minded it lasting forever, hands wandering down each other’s bodies. There were way worse ways to spend life and somehow it felt like they had all the time for it. There was no more rush, it was just the two of them, the rest of the world washed away around their bubble.

But eventually, after dozens of unhurried kisses and his hands tracing her inner thighs, she pulled away with a fonder laugh.

Having sex in the water is too difficult. There’s nothing to ground you. It’s great for cuddling, but for doing the do..? We can do better.

Now how the hell was she talking? She hadn’t moved her mouth.

It’s something we do when talking is tricky. Don’t worry. I’ll teach you.

Seemed like that was the only explanation he was gonna get, at least for now. And it didn’t matter, not when she took his hand and pulled him along, going even further into the depths. Deeper than he thought this lake went, further and further down. He used to struggle to keep up with her, and he hadn’t swam in ages, but somehow he was now keeping up with her just fine, breathing in water and not air.

He felt a strange buzzing, one that only got stronger as they swam. A strange warmth, when everything he knew about lakes said the water should be getting ice cold.

Where were they going?

She didn’t need to reply. Her look back, her bright smile, that said it all.

To her home. No, not just that.

To their home together.

April 17th

Mother,

Our negotiations have concluded. Enclosed is a copy of the bill of sale for the land where father died-

For the land where father went missing-

Jane sighed in frustration, scratching out yet another line and crumpling up the paper in her hands. Another paper wasted. She had to write to her mother, keep her aware of the proceedings. It would be several days before she was home, and that was only if her return trip did not encounter any interruptions or delays. In truth she expected it to take a week.

They had never found her father’s body. The cows had returned, not a single one unaccounted for. Janice too had come back, fully saddled with nothing missing but the trusted rifle her father had always brought with him just in case. But he had not. Her mother had rallied up every neighbour within 30 miles of them. They’d gone out at midday and not returned until an hour after dark. Her mother and a few others had tried days after, scoured the entire property. They had gone out even longer, but returned just as empty handed.

No strange woman he’d apparently been looking for, no fancy show horse, and no Cooper Howard.

In all the years they stayed there, up until her mother had had their belongings packed and sent to Chicago, not a single trace of his whereabouts were ever found. He’d first been missing, then listed as dead. No one whispered of seeing him, not a single private eye her mother hired found a trace of him elsewhere.

Her mother was a practical woman, and a wealthy one at that, even before she’d met and married her father. It took only a few years for her to be remarried to an equally wealthy widower from the East side of the country, going from Barbara Howard to Barbara Thompson. For her to go from Janey Howard to Jane Thompson. They had gone from Chicago to Concord, the land they’d left behind leased all these years to one rancher or another. It was time- No, far past it, to wash their hands of this accursed place.

But one last time, before this land she could have grown up on passed hands, she was here.

Her father was nothing more than a distant blur now. A wide hat, keeping his face from burning. A bright smile as he showed her Janice, her smile in turn when she realized she and the horse had such similar names. His nickname for her. Janey. There was a photograph of him, but even that was now faded, a grey and white face of a man 10 years younger than the last day she’d ever seen him.

The cows’ cloven hoof prints were still etched into the ground. Their cows were long taken to market and sold. These were marks from the ranchers leasing the land. Soon they too would be gone.

She did not know whether the Pembertons intended to keep ranching the land or had another purpose for it in mind. She had no intention of asking. What was done to it would no longer be her concern once it had passed their lawyer’s review and her mother had been less than interested in knowing. Perhaps there would be more cows here, year after year until the land was worn away to dust. Perhaps not.

The wind picked up, threatening to loosen her carefully-pinned hair.

What had happened here? Her father had loved them. He wouldn’t have run out on them, as her mother sometimes whispered after too much wine when she thought she couldn’t hear. Not her daddy, the one who loved her and called her Janey and had promised he’d teach her to ride a horse.

The sun was setting. It was time to at least return to the old house. There was still a bed there and she had a day’s worth of travel tomorrow to meet with the land’s new owners. Still...

She had forgotten how vast the skies were here. She closed her eyes, letting out a shuddering breath, facing the orange-gold of the day’s last light.

When she opened her eyes and turned back, two pale shapes stopped her from the corner of her eye.

She squinted, trying to make them out. Horses. They must be wild horses. They were both pale, one with a dark mane and the other a mottled mix of spots and patches, pale and tan and brown. An appaloosa, if she remembered correctly.

Strange. Where was the rest of the herd? They must be further in the distance. Unless these two were sick. But if they were sick, they did not look it. They looked to be in their prime of health.

They stared, and Jane stared back.

The smaller of the two, and despite having been torn from her equine education Jane knew it was a mare, took off in a run that was strangely exuberant, resembling a deer’s hop more than a horse’s typical canter.

Jane swore she could hear the tinkle of sleigh bells.

The second horse stayed, staring in a strange way. Horses didn’t see ahead of them, yet he (she knew it was male) stared as though he did, gazing deeply and long.

It took a step forward, then another. Staring all the while.

In the fading light, the creature’s shadow grew long, distorted. It seemed to change somewhat, looking oddly caught between beast and man.

What did it want? What could it mean? Why did it stare, stare as if to speak, as if-

The soft chime started again, and with a snort the stallion too turned in a sudden gallop, disappearing down the hill. Nothing more than a horse and its mate.

Jane didn’t know why she ran, why tears pricked at the corners of her eyes. She tripped as she reached the edge of the ravine, landing hard on her knees and wrists.

There were no horses. There were no bells.

Only the wind in the trees, and the babble of the river on rock.